The world according to Nicky Haslam

Opulence and good times magnet, interior designer Nicky Haslam on Andy Warhol, Pekinese puppies, chocolate pudding and his blog.

Who or what inspired you to go into interior design? I’ve decorated all my life – from my room at Eton and my parents’ house in Buckinghamshire. But it never crossed my mind that one could do it as a profession until Billy Baldwin admired my first apartment in New York in the mid-Sixties, which Andy Warhol used as a studio for some of his early films.

And who or what inspires your work today? The team around me at NH Design – my stylish, efficient and all-round blessing creative director Colette van den Thillart and a brilliant group of young and beautiful designers.

Whose home would you love to decorate? I wish you’d said which house, rather than whose! Then I’d say the little Chinese villa outside Palermo in Sicily, built for the sister of Marie Antoinette.

Describe your perfect room, fictional or otherwise. My perfect room looks like someone actually lives in it – not a bland hotel space. Even if it’s entirely modern, it contains all the things that rooms over the centuries have contained – piles of books, candles, ashtrays, lamps, lampshades, objet d’art, bronzes, layers. And always, something pink and something ugly.

What is your own home like? See above!

What can we expect from your blog? The unexpected, the unsuspected, the unforgotten, the unexplained, the chic, the charming, and the cool.

Who or what has surprised you lately? Parquet floors in Copenhagen Airport.

IPC Media

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